Simon Morris

The applicant, Universal Engineered Restoration, brought an application under Rule 14 for the distribution of $305,987.52 held in the trust account of the respondent lawyer, Harpreet Khukh, due to competing claims from other respondents, Ayman Mohammed Alkhatib and 8995079 Canada Inc. Mr. Khukh had paid the funds into court.

On consent of the parties, the application was converted into an action, with Universal to deliver a Statement of Claim and the other respondents to deliver a Statement of Defence and Counterclaim.

The application was dismissed without costs against Mr. Khukh, and costs of the proceeding to date were ordered to be in the cause of the converted action.

The parties brought competing motions in a family law proceeding.

The respondent husband sought summary judgment declaring the valuation date as June 30, 2008, while the applicant wife claimed the date was December 20, 2019.

The court dismissed the husband's motion, finding his evidence disingenuous and setting the valuation date at December 20, 2019.

The court granted the wife's motion for interim spousal support, imputing an income of $838,000 to the husband and ordering him to pay $25,000 per month.

The court also granted the wife leave to question the family's long-time lawyer as a non-party, but dismissed her request for interim disbursements without prejudice.

The defendant moved to set aside a default judgment granted against him for defamatory comments he posted online under a pseudonym.

The plaintiffs had obtained a Norwich order to identify him and served him via email.

The defendant admitted to receiving the emails but claimed he thought they were a scam and ignored them until he realized the plaintiffs had discovered his actual identity.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the defendant made a conscious decision not to participate in the proceedings, failed to move promptly, and lacked a compelling defence on the merits.

The court emphasized that allowing the defendant to reopen the case after forcing the plaintiffs to expend significant resources to unearth his identity would be an abuse of process.

The applicants and respondents were equal shareholders in a corporation that owned a commercial property.

They entered into a Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) for the respondents to buy the applicants' shares.

The respondents failed to complete the payments under the SPA and subsequently excluded the applicants from the corporation's management, including selling the property without the applicants' consent.

The court found that the respondents repudiated the SPA and acted oppressively.

The SPA was terminated, and the applicants remained one-third shareholders, entitling them to an equal share of the net proceeds from the property's sale.

The respondents were granted relief from forfeiture for the $50,000 already paid under the SPA, but the funds were to be held pending a costs determination.

Appeal from a trial judgment concerning a dispute between a former unmarried couple over property rights in development properties.

The trial judge found that a property development agreement (PDA) existed between the parties despite a cohabitation agreement containing broad waivers of property rights.

The trial judge set aside the cohabitation agreement as it applied to the development properties under section 56(4)(b) of the Family Law Act, finding that neither party understood the consequences of the agreement regarding their property development venture.

The trial judge awarded the respondent $3,325,000 plus interest and costs.

The appellant appealed on three grounds: the trial judge erred in setting aside the agreement only as to development properties; in not setting aside the entire agreement including the spousal support waiver; and in calculating the amount owing under the PDA.